Sometimes being repeatedly condescending and dismissive is even less civil than name calling.

Seems like alot of this is going around. Empathy would be a great thing to substitute. It is clear that healer balance is off. It is clear that priests of both specs are at the bottom of the pecking order. The current logs suggest as much but if you can convince us that there will be massive turn around when a player gets a few peices of raid gear, then i can accept that arguement.

If we can agree that priests are at the bottom of the pecking order, then the question that needs to be asked is by how much and is this margin acceptable?

If the margin is not acceptable then issolation of the problem needs to be addressed. Is it a mana problem or a different problem? A solution MUST be found in any case or a good priest will be beaten by a bad *insert any other healing spec* any day (but not a really bad *insert any other healing spec*, that would be just silly).

If the margin is acceptable, then what little tweaks can be done to bring EVERYONE closer in line?

Constructive is a word that i feel is being thrown around alot lately. What is constructive feedback. Anytime someone discusses their feelings it is regulated as not being constructive. When numbers are posted, those numbers are seen as faulty so that is not considered constructive. Comparing to other classes isn't considered constructive because the class are different so there is no way to compare apples to oranges. Or is it the attitude when someone posts. That means that if someone is frustrated they should not post at all.

Constructive is a word that i feel is being thrown around alot lately. What is constructive feedback. Anytime someone discusses their feelings it is regulated as not being constructive. When numbers are posted, those numbers are seen as faulty so that is not considered constructive. Comparing to other classes isn't considered constructive because the class are different so there is no way to compare apples to oranges. Or is it the attitude when someone posts. That means that if someone is frustrated they should not post at all.

Not a lot can be done to change any of this, unfortunately, as people will always have different views on what is and isn't "constructive" feedback. Emotional arguments will always be viewed in a negatively light by some posters, and viewed in a positive light by others.

As far as the numbers are concerned, the faults in the data come from the outrageously small sample size we have to draw from. Fact is, we've had less than a week of Normal raiding, in a single raid instance. We haven't seen parses from some of the best guilds in the world, and the majority of the arguments presented here have been anecdotal. Maybe these issues were pointed out during the beta, and maybe there was enough evidence to substantiate these claims, but it is obvious that what we are seeing now is a knee-jerk reaction to a bad raid debut for priests.

It's too early to call this conclusively, in my opinion. I'm not saying priests don't have problems, but I'm not gonna call them broken until we have more data to draw from.

God no. Not something like Lifegrip. But just think about void shift. Its even worse for shadow spec. I would think of a more useful ability that could be used for both holy and shadow. Somethink like the 87 shaman ability wouldnt be bad. Like 15 sec for more healing or DPS with a long CD. At least it would be more useful. Thats my opinion at least.

And besides as ppl pointed out before Void Shift is another spell with potential to be a grief ability. I just dont want to see more priest hate because you used the ability at the wrong time and you died or another person in the party died.

You don't help the problem when you continually insult people who are already upset. You aren't calming anything when you tell them to just shut up and stop posting. You aren't helping anymore than they are.

How would you have me calm the situation?

I'd have you show a little empathy, and if you couldn't, just leave them alone. No one is making you read the threads. Continually harping on "spam" and telling people they need to stop posting doesn't help anything. It just upsets people and makes them lash out.

Next up, Shado-pan. Nothing terrible until the last trash packs before Taran-zhu, unless the group executed them flawlessly (this is on regular), they oom'd me on him. After the 10% mana reduction, I wasn't oom, but in no way was I ready for the next pull. The worst part was, I had a friend make a holy pali, leveled it to 87, and then healed that instance (in a very sloppy pug from what I saw), and those pulls only took them to about 50% mana at worst. They were using selfless healer, and not Eternal Flame, nor were they abusing crusader strike for HoPo.

Got to 90. Got ever piece of the free-on-beta PvP gear, even gemmed and chanted it for straight spirit, or wore slightly lower pieces that had more spirit. Heroics were painful if the group wanted to go fast, or took some unavoidable damage. I was using my mana cd's on cooldown on trash and boss fight alike, powerdrinking, and making toons to sell/delete just for the gold to buy mana pots at the stupid ridiculous beta prices people wanted. I even tried using the higher ilvl int pieces with spirit reforged to them, with no better luck.

I tried to heal a few LFR runs, but even with very low (20% or less including EoL, Divine Hymn, and renew) overhealing, and using mana cd's on CD, etc. I was ooming faster and putting out less effective healing than any other healer in there by a large margin. I switched back to solace, thinking I could weave it in between casts and do better, and I'll admit, it was a little better, but not by enough to even remotely close that healing gap.

This post, while he was on beta and I was not, is a perfect example of how I feel and my experiences so far. I have had tanks die in heroic instances because I was OOM using alchemist flasks and mana pots. Now sure, it means people are standing in bad things and I have had to a lot of healing that ideally I would not have to do, but I have played priests as mains since Vanilla and cannot think of any expansion where this has been the case. I have NEVER been one of those healers who calls for innervates, bragging that the best healers manage their own mana while maintaining high healing numbers, yet I am asking for them now constantly.

What I have observed is that priests *can* do it. The difference is you have to be exceptional or working your butt off to get the job done, while other classes can breeze through with no problems. I am basing that comment on what guildies have said about their own mana usage and what I have seen at raids. Don't even start me on my shaman best friend who heals heroics in full pvp gear gemmed with resilience/pvp power and finishes bosses with more than half mana.

I will not play other classes. I am a crazy lady who has 5 priests at 85 or 90 (long story) and do not find much joy in other classes. I don't see that I will be using my holy paladin or the monk healer I am leveling as my mains. But it is not a good feeling to know your raid considers your class sub-optimal. Or to know that I will only get in an RBG group that is taking me because of past history and friendship, stating openly that any other healing class would be stronger in my place - and being unable to disagree. I am squishier and have much greater mana issues than any other healing class in pvp. And no I don't have numbers to back this up (not having the time or inclination right now to dig them up), this is what I have observed and what anyone playing the game right now would see. It reminds me a bit of early BC when I couldn't find a progression raid group unless I was shadow.

One thing I have observed though is nerfed mana return with Hymn of Hope. In some heroics where people have been particularly bad about standing in stuff, I have, instead of mindbender, used shadow fiend and HoH for mana return and barely returned a third of my mana. What is up with this? I am not seeing any mana return methods really returning mana to any substantial degree (ie more than one or two heals). Now this IS something I wish I had the numbers on and I hope people who are better than I at parsing/logging fights would produce information for.

I love the expansion, I am enjoying many of the changes in play style and find as holy in pvp I have many more survival tools at my disposal. But I am glad I am no longer with my former progression ten man as I would be sitting out right now (we ran Cata with four healers, one of each class) - actually happy I am not serious about progression this expansion or I would be beating my head against the wall.

Yes, priests can get the job done. But relative to all other healing classes we are weak and unbalanced. And (lol) yeah I know this is just another QQ post but I am feeling the pain and as others have said, numbers *have* been posted, details *have* been given. I don't know what else to say.

I'd have you show a little empathy, and if you couldn't, just leave them alone.

That's the thing though, they won't go away if they're left alone, and getting them to go away is the goal. I'll grant you I'm not exactly being nice about it, but I seriously don't understand how anyone could ever think that this kind of venting is helpful to anyone. I can empathize just fine with nerfs, I'm sure you remember the crusade I was on against the WG nerf at the tail end of 4.2, but I can't condone the type of posting that's been going on here.

I have no idea how you could rationalize just telling me to stop when you understand exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. Tell me to be nicer, sure, but you know why I won't stop.

I find it helpful, actually. In general, I find a whole range of posts helpful, from the priests who are shocked and fumbling for the right words to Kaels's always thoughtful and illuminating mathematical posts. His posts pass muster, no? And what a great reception it got, didn't it! After all the insistence on providing numbers to back up claims? His math (math!) made someone want to "vomit," and also, the sample was terrible, and you can't compare healers, and you can't compare healers in a raid you aren't in, and plus, it was just /facepalm bad for some reason and other things that "obviously" prove that healer numbers comparisons aren't useful, and it's too early even though very little changed since months ago on beta when all these problems and supporting numbers were first brought up. The posts I don't find helpful, if we're voting, are the ones that say, "I'm not having mana or throughput issues whatsoever. Something something qq l2p. Stop spamming flash heal." Can you make those people go away?

If I saw people saying that I would certainly try, but I don't. All I see are people debating the accuracy of theorycrafting (vomiting aside), and stating, very rationally, that we are pulling data from a very very small sample size, and therefore can't reasonably conclude that the sky is falling.

Posts like Kaels', however, are posts that we need more of, and we need them to not be obstructed by unsubstantiated whining, complaints about our MVP, and complaints about DPS rolling on spirit gear.

I think if we're capable of distinguishing the constructive posts from the venty posts, the developers probably are too.

Of course, but just think of the sheer volume of posts they (or rather whoever acts as the intermediary between them and us) have to sift through on a daily basis just to get to those constructive posts. We aren't the only forum they look at, and priests' problems are not the only healing related problems they have their eyes on, so we might as well make it easy for them to spot the constructive posts when they need to. Then we have the issue of the general atmosphere of the forum, and how we look in the eyes of the devs when they poke their heads in.

If you're going to demand constructive posts you should hold yourself to the same standard. I'll extend you an apparently unilateral courtesy and won't suggest that when you see math your brain shrivels up and substitutes QQWTFBBQ for all those wacky characters, or suggest that when you encounter a ratio like 2 to 1, it renders you subliterate and incapable of divining what's actually written. These aren't new numbers. We've had the data for months (the numbers on beta showed paladins and monks doubling priest healing and we were told then that they would be nerfed).

That's the thing though, they won't go away if they're left alone, and getting them to go away is the goal. I'll grant you I'm not exactly being nice about it, but I seriously don't understand how anyone could ever think that this kind of venting is helpful to anyone. I can empathize just fine with nerfs, I'm sure you remember the crusade I was on against the WG nerf at the tail end of 4.2, but I can't condone the type of posting that's been going on here.

What some people feel is helpful differs. Some posters believe simply expressing their opinion if fine, others think math and breakdowns are what matters the most. This is however a public forum, and I don't think playing moderator is helpful either. Complaining about it is just stuffing topics with more nonsense - the same nonsense that's aggravating to begin with.

We've had the data for months (the numbers on beta showed paladins and monks doubling priest healing and we were told then that they would be nerfed).

Then why aren't we seeing an abundance of analyzed data? If things haven't changed between now and beta, why hasn't all of the data from the beta been regurgitated onto the Healing forum and Priest forum and analyzed ad nauseum? Where are all of the blue posts acknowledging the problems and promising changes?

If we really had months and months' worth of data, we'd have months and months' worth of data to look at. I don't know about you, but I haven't been looking at months and months's worth of data, I've been looking at a few parses from the first week of raiding. Beta's over, let's bring all of the relevant data into the present and analyze it, if there is any relevant data to be analyzed.

You have every right to it, I just feel like this forum in particular can sometimes have a gated community feel to it and I know it's something that often turns me off. Either way, I find it as tiresome reading people complain how annoyed they are at posters as what the posters themselves are saying.

Not that I'm contributing anything myself with these couple posts, so meh /frolics off